In this survey, ACT asked thousands of K–12 teachers, college instructors, and workforce supervisors and employees about their views on current educational practices and “college and career readiness expectations.” According to ACT, these expectations rightly include not only “core academic skills” in English, reading, mathematics, and science, but also “cross-cutting capabilities” like technological literacy and collaborative problem solving, “behavioral skills” related to self-regulation, and “education and career navigation skills.” (No one could accuse the organization of having a narrow perspective.)
Overall, survey respondents identified “acting honestly” and “sustaining effort” as the most important “non-academic characteristics” for young people to develop. And in a separate set of questions, “content knowledge” and “conscientiousness” were ranked highly by every group, from elementary school teachers to workplace supervisors. However, two skill areas were ranked highly only by workforce respondents: technology (by employees) and collaboration with peers (by supervisors).
Based on these results, the authors recommend that state and local education agencies track the development of students’ non-academic skills and incorporate them into instruction. They also suggest that states and districts invest in technology training for teachers. Both suggestions might be sensible in a world of perfect information and implementation, but as matters stand, they seem to rest on a rather thin reed.
On a tangentially related note, the survey also asked respondents about their views on the Common Core State Standards, which turned out to be decidedly mixed. Most notably, among high school teachers who said they were familiar with the standards, 42 percent said they are either “a great deal” or “completely” aligned with college instructors’ expectations regarding college readiness (which is, let’s acknowledge, a rather high bar). Similarly, 40 percent of college instructors reported that degree of alignment between the Common Core and their expectations about college readiness.
Building on this finding, the report highlights a few apparent disconnects between the standards and the college experience. In particular, it notes that high school teachers focus on “source-based writing,” while college instructors “appear to value the ability to generate sound ideas more than some key features of source-based writing.”
Perhaps. Or perhaps college professors value this ability because they assume students have already mastered “source-based writing,” or because (unlike high school teachers) they view their students as mature enough to know a sound idea when they see one. (It’s also worth noting that the survey was of college English teachers; history teachers, for instance, might have felt differently about writing from sources.)
In response to the report, Common Core defenders have pointed to several areas emphasized by the standards (such as “distinguishing fact from opinion”) that are ranked highly by college professors. And some have criticized the report as a disingenuous attack on Common Core.
That may seem harsh, but there is little doubt that the survey results are open to interpretation. Connecting what’s taught in school to what matters later on is obviously a worthy goal. But perhaps, as is so often the case, the real issue is that it is so much easier said than done.